Depends what "wipe the floor" means.
So nowhere near as much of a difference as last gen on a purley numbers basis - but still a notable gap between the two.
Will 720 wipe the floor with WiiU in the real world? Well, not in the same way 360 could vs Wii thats for sure. Not only do diminishing returns come into play, but there simply isn't as much of a difference between the two as there was last gen. Sure 720 will comfortably outpace WiiU (and probably PS4) in every area processing wise, but I'm not so sure we'll see a 'generational' difference as with last gen, even in the best case scenario when a 1st party dev really pushes it to its limits (and judging by how some big developers have faired this gen, and how big budget games have killed studios - that won't be too common.)
Imo even the "next gen" demos we've seen (1313 etc, the UE4 tech demo) weren't that much more visually impressive next to current gen offerings such as Uncharted 3 or Halo 4, and they were running on insane rigs which would never be affordable for MS/Sony to package into a console within the next year.
So yeah, WiiU will clearly be bottom of the pile spec wise and benchmark wise. But will the other two be leagues ahead in terms of what we actually play on them? I really don't think so.
Well, 'wipe the floor' is a hyberbolic expression, in this scenario it could mean 'unable to compete, not in the same league etc'.
And you suggested it; in my original post I put it more subtly:
have no idea how MDX and others think that an 8 core x86 CPU, with 8GB RAM and at least a 2TF Sea Islands based GPU is going to be only 'slightly better' than a 0.5 TF HD6670 (or similar), with 2GB of RAM and a three overclocked Broadway cores.
There's will definitely be a significant visual difference between games produced for the two.
Sure, it won't be as big a gap as last gen to this gen, but (from the BF4 leak) it'll at least be the difference between Battlefield 3 running at 1080p,60fps on Ultra with 64 players and the current versions of BF3 on consoles, running at 720p, 30 fps, with the PC equivalent of low settings.
That being said, I think it's fair to say that there will be a 'generational difference' between the Wii U and the 720 though of course it's never going to be as big as the difference between Wii and 360 (we are after all going from programmable shaders to more programmable shaders, rather than fixed function hardware to programmable shaders).
I don't see next gen engines like Star Wars 1313, Agni's Philosophy or the UE4 tech demo running on Wii U. So than in itself indicates a generational difference.
The Wii U is also much, much closer in power to the 360 and the PS3 than their successors, it's not even a halfway house between the two gens.
The Wii U's relationship to the PS3/360 is like the Gamecube (or Xbox) to the PS2 all will be seen as belonging to the same generation (powerwise) and no one's going to group it with the PS4 and 720.
Let's also not forget (as everyone seems to) that it's not just about the size of the graphical disparity between Wii U and the next gen machines.
It's also about CPU power and the Wii U is apparently weaker than the 360 and PS3 in that area so it's hardly going to be able to drive the AI, animation, physics and other complex interactions and simulations that games will be able to do on the 720 and PS4.
So in that sense it's certainly true that the Wii U will be unable to compete (powerwise) and will be outclassed by the 720/PS4 as it simply will not be able to provide the experiences they are capable of providing.
